Day Eleven covered the story of how Eratosthenes estimated the size of the Earth by measuring the angle of a noonday shadow on the summer solstice. I had definitely heard the story before (in fact, I seem to remember a geometry problem based on this in middle school), but I'm not sure if I ever knew that he specifically was the one to do so. I'm pretty sure the only other time I'd ever heard of Eratosthenes before was in reference to prime numbers (the Sieve of Eratosthenes).
It's pretty amazing that with a bit of insight and some careful timing and measurement, he was able to estimate the Earth's size to a <1% error margin. This, and the story of Archimedes, make me wonder how much farther ahead we'd be if we hadn't lost so much knowledge when the Roman Empire fell.
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